Prof. Torsten Henry Fransson to receive honorary degree from Open University
View(s):The Open University of Sri Lanka (OUSL) has decided to confer the Degree of Doctor of Science “Honoris causa” to Prof. Torsten Henry Fransson from the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden for his contribution to the OUSL.
Prof. Torsten Henry Fransson
He will receive this honour at the OUSL convocation on November 14 at the BMICH, Colombo.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden is one of the best universities in the world, ranked among the first 100 Universities in the world today.
The OUSL in 2008 entered into an agreement of Academic Cooperation with the Royal Institute of Technology for the facilitation of offering the KTH Master of Science in Sustainable Energy Engineering programme to Sri Lankan students.
“The energy sector in Sweden is very advanced but there was no energy degree programme at OUSL by that time. That was one of the reasons for getting together to offer Sri Lankan students an education that can be profitable for the country. In terms of the agreement, the OUSL and Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Open University in particular, have been providing facilities in the form of academic counselling, library facilities, conducting examinations, project identification and supervision, coordination with local experts in the energy sector and Internet access to those students. The programme was offered with no cost to the students and the OUSL was compensated for facilitating the programme,” according to an OUSL media release.
This programme is popularly known as ‘SEE World’ as a parallel alternative that allows Sri Lankan students to participate in the regular Sustainable Energy Engineering Programme at a distance offered by the KTH. The objective of offering the programme is to assist the developing nations to build human resources capacity with expertise in sustainable energy generation and utilisation, hence contributing to national development.
Students successfully completing the SEE World Programme are entitled to be conferred the degree of “Master of Science with specialisation in Sustainable Energy Engineering”. A total of 117 students have successfully completed the SEE World MSc and they are at present employed in key organisations in the energy sector as well as in the national universities.
Apart from the efforts of Prof. Fransson in this project, enormous contributions also came from Prof. N. R Arthenayake, who was the first Programme Facilitator in Sri Lanka and Dr. Jeevan Jayasuriya who is SEE World Programme Developer and the former Programme Coordinator at KTH, among others.
With the experiences gained, the OUSL’s Department of Mechanical Engineering is now in the process of delivering a one-year Masters’ programme in Energy Management in 2019 with the support of SEE World MSc holders as well as those who are working in energy industry in Sri Lanka and academics who have the potential to contribute their knowledge in delivering the programme.
Prof. Fransson is a Fellow of the ASME and a Senior Member of the AIAA. He is also a Member of the Royal Physiographic Society in Lund and the Swedish Royal Engineering Academy (IVA). He has published more than 200 scientific papers together with various co-researchers.